128 Bulletin 65. 



killed the 6 proved sound and the 31 without exception tubercu- 

 lous. But of the 31 only i had general tuberculosis and was 

 condemned as unfit for food, and i was sold as second-class meat. 

 The 29 brought first-class prices as meat, and having been only 

 slightly affected would probably have lived for years without in- 

 fecting others. Now it is submitted that the German standard as 

 thus given is not radical enough to secure safety for man or beast, 

 nor to give hope of an early extinction of tuberculosis. The 

 meat of the animal with two or three tubercles in one organ is 

 generally, but by no means always, free from the germ. When 

 the disease does extend from such isolated tubercles, as often 

 happens, the germ is carried not only in the lymph, but in the 

 blood, and with tubercle in the body no one can tell when the 

 bacillus has passed into the circulation and reached the different 

 organs. Tubercles usually form slowly and the bacilli must have 

 been in the blood for some time before they show as fresh tubercles 

 in tissues and organs distant from the old ones. The meat of a 

 tuberculous animal can never therefore be fully guaranteed as 

 safe to eat. But again, while a cow with one or two tubercles 

 only in lymphatic glands, may not be liable to transmit the disease 

 to others, yet whenever an extension takes place, the germs being 

 carried by the blood and therefore throughout the whole system, 

 there must always be danger of their escape from the natural 

 surfaces (lungs, udder, liver, bowels, etc.) to infect other animals. 

 And let it be borne in mind, this diffusion through the blood takes 

 place before its occurrence is revealed by the formation of tuber- 

 cles in new situations. So long, therefore, as a single victim of 

 even slight tuberculosis is left in a herd it can only be looked 

 upon as an invitation to a renewed extension of the disease. It 

 also may become at any moment a source of infection for man 

 through the use of the meat or milk. It is only in degree that 

 the contagion of tuberculosis differs, as to its sanitary aspect, from 

 that of any one of the more contagious diseases, and in all alike 

 so soon as we attach more importance to the preservation of an 

 infected animal that will probably recover, than we do to the 

 radical extinction of the disease, we undermine and destroy the 

 effectiveness of our sanitary' work. Practicalh' all cases of foot 

 and mouth disease recover ; yet the frequently recurring epizootics 

 of this disease each cost from $5 to $10 per head over the entire 



